The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 1. PoetryByron, George Gordon Byron, Baron
General
The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 1. Poetry
Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron
Poetry
[Footnote viii:
'seems to smile',
['Corsair', III. st. i. 1. 54.]]
[Footnote ix:
'Sad shrine'.
['MS.']]
[Footnote x:
'Welcome to slaves, and foremost'.
['MS'.] ]
[Footnote xi:
'Ah, Athens! scarce escaped from Turk and Goth,
Hell sends a paltry Scotchman worse than both.'
['MS'.]]
[Footnote xii:
'British peer'.
['MS'.] ]
[Footnote xiii:
'Sneaking Jackal'.
['MS'.] ]
[Footnote xiv:
'guilty name'.
['MS'.]]
[Footnote xv:
'A land of liars, mountebanks, and Mist'.
['MS'.]]
[Footnote xvi:
'That Art may measure old and modern styles'.
['MS'.]]
[Footnote xvii:
'shy comparisons'.
['MS'.]
[Footnote xviii:
'In sooth the Nymph 'twere no slight task to please
Since young Sir Harry, etc.'
['MS'.]]
[Footnote xix:
'Fallen is each dear bought friend on Foreign Coast
Or leagued to add you to the world you lost'.
['MS'.]]
[Footnote xx:
'----'the glittering file
The martial sounds that animate the while'.
['MS'.]]
INTRODUCTION TO 'THE WALTZ'
Byron spent the autumn of 1812 "by the waters of Cheltenham," and,
besides writing to order his 'Song of Drury Lane' (the address spoken at
the opening of the theatre, Oct. 10, 1812), he put in hand a 'Satire on
Waltzing'. It was published anonymously in the following spring; but,
possibly, because it was somewhat coolly received, he told Murray (April
21, 1813) "to contradict the report that he was the author of a certain
malicious publication on waltzing." In his memoranda "chiefly with
reference to my Byron," Moore notes "Byron's hatred of waltzing," and
records a passage of arms between "the lame boy" and Mary Chaworth,
which arose from her "dancing with some person who was unknown to her."
Then, and always, he must have experienced the bitter sense of exclusion
from active amusements; but it is a hasty assumption that Byron only
denounced waltzing because he was unable to waltz himself. To modern
sentiment, on the moral side, waltzing is unassailable; but the first
impressions of spectators, to whom it was a novelty, were distinctly
unfavourable.
In a letter from Germany (May 17, 1799) Coleridge describes a dance
round the maypole at Rübeland.
"The dances were reels and the waltzes, but chiefly the latter; this
dance is in the higher circles sufficiently voluptuous, but here the
motions of it were 'far' more faithful interpreters of the passions."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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